- Between the wrapping of InfoComm 09 on June 19th and the 4th of July weekend, Sam Taylor, formerly of Electrograph, was busy building his new marketing team at Almo. Taylor has just told Digital Signage magazine that most of his sales and marketing staff is in place.
- Almo Corporation, a distributor of consumer electronics and appliances, announced June 16th–on the eve of InfoComm– that it is launching a new value-added professional audio/visual distribution division led by industry veteran Sam Taylor. The new division will provide commercial and consumer grade products such as LCD’s, projectors, specialty displays, video conferencing, audio, mounting solutions, and a host of other products designed for commercial AV integrators and dealers. The new division is led by Sam Taylor who has been appointed as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Professional Audio/Visual Division.
“Almo has approached the commercial AV business very differently from the other broad line distributors” Sam Taylor told me. “Instead of making the division a hybrid of their consumer electronics division, we have hired a 100% dedicated and trained Pro A/V team that understands the unique needs of the market. The average sales team member has 5 years experience, is InfoComm trained and many are CTS certified. In addition, they have experience in multiple vertical markets such as education, government, house of worship, corporate and digital signage. Many of the broad line distributors have jumped on the digital signage bandwagon and put some sales resources on a team, but that’s just one small segment of the whole commercial market.”
When I asked Sam who specifically is joining the Almo sales team, he outlined the core of his new team.
“We’re product to announce the appointment of Steve Stacy as Regional Sales Director for the Western U.S. who started July 1 and John Riley as Regional Sales Director for the Eastern U.S. who starts approximately August 1. Steve has over 22 years experience in the A/V industry and John has over 16 years. Both are CTS certified and were most recently with Electrograph. On Steve’s team we have Doug Schulte and Eric Kenyon in the Northeast, Kamilla Mills in the Southeast, and Tanya Fritts in the West starting July 1. On John’s team we have Patti Lawrence, Krista Mooney and Brad Schertle in the Mid-Atlantic, Fred Rogers and Darren Altman in the Southeast, Matt Wilder and a number of others starting throughout July for the Northeast.”
According to Taylor, he and his team had many meetings at InfoComm with top manufacturing partners and are in the contract phase with many of them now. Currently Almo carries Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, Philips, Monster and many other major lines. They expect to announce 10-15 new lines by the end of July including NEC, Panasonic Professional Displays, Canon, Da-Lite, Furman, Premier, and others. Taylor also considers it a great advantage that Almo carries many top consumer lines. Some of their customers, they foresee, will have a need for both Pro and Consumer product.
Almo...www.almo.com
